


Lavender Eyes

by Alley_Walk (AlleyWalk_writes)



Series: Ascension [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Body Dysphoria, Character Death... sort of?, Child Neglect, Culture Shock, Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider is named Dietrich, Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider's C+ Parenting, Demon Rosé AU, Gen, Hearing Voices, Learning to be Human, Sparring, he's an awkward asshole but he tries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24470812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlleyWalk_writes/pseuds/Alley_Walk
Summary: You look at your daughter, lying prone on the operating table with surgeons surrounding her, her eyes closed with only the beeping of the heart monitor to accompany her breathing. You can see her, your precious Rosie, slipping away before your eyes. You take a sip of your martini glass to calm your nerves just as Rose flatlines. Yout heart drops, and you rush to her side, pushing the surgeons aside despite all reason telling you to do otherwise.Rose's eyes open, the rising wail of the heart monitor ringing in your ears.Her eyes glow with a burning yellow-white light, and pale lilac eyes shift to a deep, bruising lavender. You step forward. "Rose?"Rose looks at you with eyes that are too old to belong to any child. "I'm sorry for your loss."The martini glass shatters in your hand.
Relationships: Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider & Rose Lalonde, Rose Lalonde & Dave Strider, Rose Lalonde & Rose Lalonde, Rose Lalonde & Rose's Mom | Beta Roxy Lalonde
Series: Ascension [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768975
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Lavender Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, y'all!
> 
> This is a new AU that I'm starting rn. I can't say much about it right now other than to let the text speak for itself. This was actually supposed to be an introduction to the main plot, but it turned out to be more of an introduction to Rose and Rose's problems. You'll see what I mean.
> 
> Read on! ^_^

??? ====> Dream.

The Land is undisturbed, the peaceful rushing of the waves against the shore and the pitter patter of the rain against the soft white sand the only sound to be heard. Not even the Land’s lone occupant stirs, the cat-like creature curled up in a ball on the white sands with their tail covering their nose. The Land is undisturbed. Until it isn’t. The cat-like creature lifts their head with their ears pricked as they pick up the sound of laboured breathing and odd, warbling cries from the shore. The scent of human reaches their nose, and their stomach growls with hunger. They stand and give a leisurely stretch before prowling quietly over towards the sound. Their feline eyes slit in interest as they look down upon the small human, blood leaking from a wound in their side. The feline’s head tilts in curiosity, and they take a deep breath of their scent. Yes, a being of Light. They must be on death’s door for their soul to have wandered here. 

The human beneath the feline coughed and then opened pale lilac eyes. They blink at the feline and give them a wry smile full of blood, their pale blonde hair spread in a halo around their head. “I’ve read quite a lot about you.” The human says.

The feline’s ears flick. “Have you?” They ask dubiously.

The human nods. “Yes. And I’m afraid that I need your help.”

The large feline tilts their head, their eyes slitted. “And what help would that be?”

The human takes a deep breath, as if bracing themselves for something painful. This confuses the big cat; they are already in pain. “I’ve made quite a lot of mistakes in my short life, and I’ve come to you to rectify them.”

“You’re dying, I hardly think you can fix anything at this point.” The feline points out.

“Not unless you take my place.” The human suggests presumptuously. The feline bares their teeth in warning. “You’re my Denizen.” The human reminds them. “It’s your job to help me.”

The feline closes their eyes. “Tell me about these mistakes.”

The human appears relieved. “My mother. I never… expressed myself the way I should have with her. I see that now. And my brother. His name’s Dave. I haven’t talked to him much, mostly online, but I know he would be quite remiss if I died.” The human smiles, closing her eyes. “You’ll keep an eye on them for me, won’t you?” 

* * *

_ Mother is driving past a busy intersection, a DUI surely in her future. She’s laughing at something on the radio, so she doesn’t look when she hits the excelerator. Doesn’t see the red light. Headlights flash in your eyes, blinding you. There’s the blare of a horn, and a sickening crunch as the two vehicles collide. Then there is pain, and darkness–and you find yourself washing up onto a beach of pure white sand, the inky dark waves crashing against the shore as thunder peals overhead. _

_ Perhaps everything is not lost after all.  _

* * *

**2 days later…**

**The Lalonde Manse**

“What did you do?!  _ What did you do _ to my Rosie?!” The human screams in your newly acquired face. 

_[Her name is Doctor Roxy Lalonde,]_ your stolen mind whispers, _[mother, antagoniser_. _]_ _(_ ** _Anger. Regret. Sorrow._** _)_ You look at the strange liquid running down their face and the strange object held in their hand. _[Those are tears_ , _]_ the echo of Rose whispers.

_ (???)  _ You ask.

_ (Amusement.)  _ The echo says. _ [Tears are meant to express sorrow or grief. As for the object, that is a wine bottle.]  _

_ (???) _

_ [Wine is a type of drink that has negative effects on a person’s state of mind. Do NOT let mother drink it if at all possible.] _ ****

You look down at the floor, pressing your back against the corner that you’re huddled up against. You don’t answer, despite the unnamable emotion eating at your insides. Doctor Roxy Lalonde lets out a tearing sob, and something inside your chest that isn’t yours pinches at the pained, helpless sound. You look up at her and open your mouth to speak. When your eyes meet theirs their face changes, turning dark with fury. They throw the bottle at you and it shatters on the floor right near your feet, splashing your legs with red wine while glass explodes outwards in all directions. You feel something slice up your cheek and through your upper brow and hiss in pain, hot, thick blood obscuring your vision on the right side of your face.

Human pain. How inconvenient. 

You can still see the expression in Doctor Lalonde’s face, though, your stolen mind telling you  _ regret _ where you would discern nothing. “Rosie! I’m so sorry babbu. Hold on, I…” They stop and narrow their eyes, blinking before shaking their head. “No, you’re not… you’re not my Rosie.” They swallow. “I-I gotta call Dietrich.”

They walk away on those shoes that make them oddly taller, clicking against the hard floor that was cold underneath you. You clear the blood from your eye, quite futilely, as it begins to bleed again soon after you’ve done so. You resign yourself to it, not moving from your spot as the puddle of wine begins to soak through your leggings and skirt, the sweet smell overpowered by something sharp and pungent that makes your nose itch.

_ [Moving would be the best course of action.]  _ The echo says, and you want to listen to them, but you find you cannot. Your limbs feel heavy, with a large, unbearable weight on your chest, and all you want to do is curl up on the sandy beaches of your home and sleep for a decade or two.

Your keen ears pick up an odd noise, a buzzing ring that Rose identifies as the beginnings of a  _ [phone call] _ , which takes enough irritating explanation that you almost miss what they say.  “Dietrich, I really need you to come up here with Dave and Dirk.”  They say, clearing their throat as if a piece of prey was stuck there.

_ “What’s wrong?”  _ This… ‘Dietrich’ asks sharply.

Doctor Lalonde takes a shuddering breath.  “I can’t… I can’t… be  _alone_ with it Dietrich. Not by myself. It just makes me so  _angry_ .”

_ “Are you sure that she’s really gone?” _ Dietrich asks.

_ She. (???)  _ You ask.

_ [‘She’ is a female identifying pronoun, just as ‘he’ is a male identifying pronoun. Most people identify with the sex of their birth gender, however others like my friend June or my brother Dave may decide that they wish to be a different gender altogether.]  _ The echo answers.

“I saw her eyes change, Dietrich. They glowed. ”  The Doctor answers.

Dietrich sighs.  _ “Alright. We’re on our way.” _

The voices come to an abrupt end, and you hear a click and the sound of Doctor Lalonde walking away. That strange feeling comes again, like being sick from some poorly chosen carrion but not, and it’s hard to breathe through the heaviness weighing you down like sand clinging to wet fur. You stay where you are and curl your legs up underneath you, leaning your head against the wall as you stare off into the distance. You really should get up. This is hardly a conductive space for doing anything productive. Not that you know precisely what that means yet, but you’re sure you’ll find out.

You promised you would.

After a while, you drift off into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

You wake up to raised voices nearby.

“You can’t treat it like this.” Dietrich, present and in person.

“As you say, Dietrich. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to retreat to my study.” Doctor Lalonde.

“Aren’t you going to take care of it?” 

A pause.

“You can do that just as well as I, I’m sure.” You hear her shoes click away, the sound as loud and sharp as feline claws against sandstone to your ears.

The silence seems to stretch around you, and you feel a prickling against your senses; someone is watching you. You peel open your eyes and meet a shadowed gaze, the human with spiky blond hair watching you silently. You meet his stare and watch him back, feeling no less tired than you had before. This very fact irritates you; even the human need for such a thing as sleep seems disgustingly pedantic to you. 

Eventually, the human grunts, breaking his stare. "C'mon, let's get you cleaned up." He leans down and scoops you up under one arm, leaving you hanging at his side like an unfortunate piece of prey. He grabs clothes and starts to run water from an odd device  _ [faucet] _ which thunders down into a lipped pool _ [bathtub.] _

He leaves you alone once he starts the rain  _ [it's a shower, actually.] _ and you ponder on what to do next. Luckily the echo has some ideas, and it's not long until you're 'clean.' Tongue baths were better, in your opinion.

Tilting your head, you stare at yourself in the reflective pool trapped and contained against the wall.  _ [It’s a mirror,] _ the echo says, amused. You purse your lips, irritated for no reason you can fathom. You focus on your reflection. The body in the mirror before you has strawberry blonde hair and pale skin with a small but noticeable cut running from the middle of her cheek up through the fuzzy hairs on her brow. But when you meet your eyes, instead of the pale lilac that should be there, a familiar dark, bruising lavender stares back at you. 

You shiver, rubbing your arms as you turn away from the mirror. A sickening feeling curdles your stomach. You want out of this body. You want to claw all of its skin off to see what lays underneath. This body isn’t yours and it will never be yours, and that feeling… 

_ [I’m sorry.] _

You curl up in the corner of the room, and eventually you must fall asleep because when you wake up you find Dietrich standing over you. You bristle, startled and baring fangs you don’t have, and he raises an eyebrow at you. You hiss.

He sighs and then throws something at you. You leap out of the way, on edge and staring between him and the threat. …Or perhaps not a threat. It appears to be some sort of fur, much like the one you were wearing yesterday. You take a cautious step forward to investigate, nudging it with one hand before leaping back, on guard.

The fur does nothing.

Hmm.

“Clothes.” Dietrich says, and you look up at him curiously. You cock your head to listen, but for once, the echo makes no comment. Dietrich makes a frustrated noise. “Damnit, Lalonde.” He mutters. He picks up a ‘clothes’ and shows it to you. “This is a t-shirt. I can show you how to put it on if you want. That sound cool?”

You tilt your head. You know he means he needs to touch you to do so, and you’re not exactly comfortable with that.

For the first time, you try using your words.

“Is instructing me out of the question?” You query.

Dietrich nods in something like approval. “Sure.”

You eventually get dressed with his help and pad out of what the human has informed you is the ‘bathroom’. You sit on Rose’s large purple bed, Dietrich slouching against the wall.

He asks you one question.

“Why?”

You find you can only bring yourself to say one thing.

“I’m sorry.”

The male human leaves soon after and you lay down in a bed that isn’t yours, in a room that isn’t yours, in a life that isn’t yours as you listen to the echo tell you more important information that you’ll need to know for tomorrow.

* * *

Dave Strider was a most interesting human being.

He was bright, when you were dark. Loud, when you were quiet. Out in the open, when you were hidden. He had secrets, you were sure. Everyone does. You, more than most. Perhaps that was why, for some reason, you were always craving his company.

Your blunted clawkind whistle through the air, aimed at Dave’s unprotected head. He parries at just the last second, sweat beading his brow as he knocks you away and slashes sideways with his sword. You dance away from the blow, the mid-morning sun beating down against your back and leaving you soaked in sweat. You stumble over an unevenness in the ground and Dave takes advantage, stepping into your guard and hooking a foot around your ankle before pulling, sending you tumbling into the grass. 

Dave sits down beside you before you can continue with your match. “We’re… not… done…” You pant, struggling to get up only for your weak human body to collapse on you.

Dave raises an eyebrow, a rare frown gracing his lips. “Uh yeah, we are. No offense sis but I’m not some fuckin’ masochist, and I really don’t enjoy beating my sister into the ground. _You’re_ improving at a _fucking_ _normal pace._ So cool it.” 

You frown, ‘cooling it,’ as Dave told you to, though for a different reason than he said. This sounds like one of those human ‘issues’ that the echo told you about.

But you say nothing, and simply change the subject.

Soon Rose’s hair grows out, her skin darkening from time out in the sun. Soon the echo begins to fade, and you’re left with just yourself in your own head, for better or worse.

Soon you’re not sure who you are anymore. The demon, or the girl you see in the mirror every day.

Soon the truth becomes more horrible than the lie. You’re not sure what you’ll see in Dave’s face, if he finds out the truth. You’re not sure you want to.

And when your world is turned upside down, no one is ready for it.

**Author's Note:**

> So... to explain, the Denizen _is_ Rose, and is not in any way some OC that replaced Rose. They do have a tiny bit of different character development to fit the setting, but it's really more like the original human Rose was a stand-in for the Denizen Rose to come into the picture. K?
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like! I'm currently working on the second installment, as this will be part of a series.
> 
> Go ahead and tell me what you think. ^_^


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